Pitching, Pitching, Pitching, Pitching, Pitching, Pi..

Very early in the year, when the Nats pitching was looking like 4 Bob Gibsons and a Bob Welch (who was a pretty good pitcher mind you) I took at look at some of their stats. I was trying to see what was potentially "unsustainable".  That doesn't mean just outperforming, it means underperforming, too.  Months later the Nats pitching is still awesome (5 guys somewhere between Gibson and Welch) so I thought it would be interesting to revisit those same stats and see where we've ended up.

Ranges
These are values that can vary from pitcher to pitcher but in general fall within a defined range. There can be an outlier or two in any given year but they are rare and barely fall out of the expected range. With so few games left this year though, you can't say anything off will be corrected this season. Really it's more of a next season thing.  (rough past 2 year average in parenthesis)

BABIP (usually ranges from .250-.325)
Strasburg:  was .262, now .314 (.275)
Gio: was .228, now .277 (.280)
ZNN: was .200, now .280 (.270)
EJax: was .250, now .262 (.320)
Detwiler: was .238, now .265  (.272)

Strasburg, by this measure alone, is having some terrible luck and yet he's still usually awesome.  Gio, ZNN, and Detwiler are back around average. Jackson is way lower but it isn't an impossible number based on the usual ranges. Notice they are all pretty low but all within range. That's what Rizzo was going for getting talented groundball pitchers to go along with with great infield D. 

HR/FB  (6.0% - 13.0%)
Strasburg: was 0.0%, now 10.6%  (4.5%)
Gio: was 0.0%, now 6.7% (8.5%)
ZNN: was 4.2%, 9.0% (14%)
EJax: was 5.0%, now 11.9% (9.4%)
Detwiler:  was 9.1%, now 6.9%  (10.6%)

Everyone was sitting too low. Everyone came back to the pack. Strasburg's been hit more with this than we'd probably expect going forward.  That Detwiler number is a big reason he's doing so well.  He's getting to the edge of normal there.  

LOB% (66% - 80%)
Strasburg: was 82.5%, now 75.4% (71%)
Gio: was 80%, now 72.2% (77.5%)
ZNN: was 80.7%, now 80.7%  (73.3%)
EJax: was 51.3%, 75.8%  (72%)
Detwiler: was 73.5%, now 70.6% (78.7%)

Early on Jackson was getting screwed here, but things evened out for him helping him out alot. That ZNN number is high, but the rest are right on target.


Personal stats
Here what we want to see if anyone has improved enough in these stats to justify the change in results we are seeing on the field. There IS a range but it's very broad and frankly I think it's more telling to look at their stats last year. It's difficult to improve on something like BABIP or LOB%. but I like to believe you can for the below.  Let's see who held up over the year and is showing real improvement.

GB%
Strasburg:   was 42.9%, now 43.9% (42%)
Gio: was 52.7%, now 46.5% (48%)
ZNN: was 48.7%, now 44.7%  (44%)
EJax: was 51.1%, now 46.5% (46%)
Detwiler: was 64.3%, now 52.0%  (43%)

We aren't seeing the same great leaps here that we did early in the year, so the all-staff improvement dream is probably gone. Detwiler though might have. Yes his number is still high in large part to that crazy start we saw.  But since then he's probably in the 49% range. That's not as good but that's still an improvement over his past numbers.

K/9  BB/9
Strasburg: was 9.00 / 2.16, now 11.14 / 2.63 (11 /2) 
Gio: was 10.27 / 2.66, now 9.49 / 3.39 (8/4)
ZNN: was 5.33 / 0.67, now 6.65 / 1.79  (7.5 / 2.3)
EJax: was 9.47 / 1.42, now 7.92 / 2.79 (7.4 / 3)
Detwiler: was 8.44 / 2.25, now 5.62 / 2.44 (5.5 / 2.73)

A couple things pop out. Strasburg's walks have gotten worse. It's hard to complain when he was starting from the !!!!! position, but it looks like my early column thinking he might do things we've never seen before was jumping the gun a bit. On the flipside, Gio's K's have remained higher.  Now alot of that has to do with being in the NL now (he's struck out pitchers in 33 of 49 at bats) but you know what? He pitches in the NL now. Other things that might be worth following, both Gio's walk rate and ZNNs seems to show consistent improvement.

Take Aways

First thing - Those ranges are real things you must accept.  Everytime early in the season you say "This guys is doing X - he can't keep that up" someone will come back and say "No! He's gotten better/worse and he is doing this, this, and that now! He can keep it up!"  No. With the exception of ZNN LOB rate (which was only 0.7% above the range I set) everyone fit back into the normal pitcher ranges. Thousands of pitching seasons over dozens of years tells us one thing. You only make yourself look foolish if you don't agree.

As for the staff.  I see real improvement with Gio in particular, and in parts with Detwiler and ZNN. At the same time the last two have had their share of luck which makes me think they are slightly outproducing what would be reasonable to expect from them.  Same thing with Edwin, slightly lucky, though with no real improvement. (Though he'd spent most of his career being unlucky so it's not like I'm telling you he's a 4.50 pitcher in disguise).  Strasburg has been the unlucky one, and along with a real regression in control, that's cause him to underproduce.

But no one is getting REAL lucky (or real unlucky) so they deserve the spot they've earned as one of the top rotations (if not the top rotation) in the majors. What about next year?  Plenty of time to talk about that in the offseason.